Decorative Rule
THE MUSICAL SCALES IN USE AT THE PRESENT DAY.

In 'An Introduction to the Study of National Music' (London, 1866) I have endeavoured to give some account of the musical scales of different nations. The subject requires, however, fuller investigation than the aim of that book would permit. The 'Introduction to the Study of National Music' is intended to acquaint the student with the facts respecting the music of foreign nations and tribes which have been transmitted to us by travellers and through other sources. It can therefore scarcely claim more than to be a collection of materials which will prove useful for the erection of an edifice called the Science of National Music, as soon as the necessary additional materials have been obtained, without which it would be premature to design in detail the plan of the edifice, and to determine precisely its dimensions and internal divisions. The acquisition of useful materials will probably be promoted by the step recently taken by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.[113] There can be no greater mistake in such pursuits than to form a theory before the examples which are to serve as illustrations have been most carefully examined and verified. It is by no means easy to commit to notation a popular tune of a foreign country which possesses peculiarities with which we are unfamiliar. Even musicians who have had experience in writing down national songs which they happen to hear, find this difficult. How unreliable, therefore, must be the notations of many travellers who know but little of music! Still, the student of National Music, by careful attention and comparison, is gradually enabled to discern what is genuine, and valuable for his purpose. He knows that if there prevails a certain peculiarity in the scale on which the tunes collected are founded, the cause may be owing to want of musical experience in the person who wrote the tunes down, or to an individual whim of the performer by whom they were sung or played to the writer of the notation. But, supposing the student examines several collections of popular tunes from the same country, the collections having been formed by different persons independently of each other, and he finds all exhibiting the same peculiarity, he has no reason to doubt that it really exists in the music of that country. Nothing gives to the popular music of a country a more distinctive feature than the order of intervals on which it is founded; when the scale has been clearly ascertained, such other characteristics as the music possesses are generally soon discerned with sufficient exactness to be definable by the experienced musical inquirer.

The notations of musical scales of uncivilized nations emanating from European travellers who have heard the people sing, are certainly to be received with caution. Of this kind of communication is, for instance, the notation of the vocal effusions progressing in demi-semitones of the Marquesas Islanders at their cannibal feasts, written down by Councillor Tilesius, and published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, Leipzig, 1805; or the notation of songs of the New Zealanders containing smaller intervals than semitones, which Mr. Davies has written down, and which Sir George Grey has published in his 'Polynesian Mythology of the New Zealand Race' (London, 1855). It is, however, often possible to ascertain the musical scale of a nation with exactness by examining the musical instruments appertaining to the nation. Thus, for instance, the Chinese close some of the finger-holes of their flutes by sticking pieces of bladder over them, in order to ensure the pentatonic scale; the Javanese construct instruments of percussion with sonorous slabs of metal or wood, arranged in conformity with the pentatonic scale; the Arabs, and most Mohammedan nations who have cultivated their music after the system of the Arabs, possess wind-instruments of the oboe kind on which the finger-holes are placed in accordance with the division of seventeen intervals in the compass of an octave; and also several stringed instruments of the Arabs, which are supplied with frets made of gut wound round the neck or finger-board, exhibit the same order of intervals; again, certain stringed instruments of the Hindus contain a number of little bridges, stuck with wax beneath the strings so as to produce, on a string being pressed down on the bridges successively, twenty-two intervals in the compass of the octave. Other instruments have marks on the sound-board as a guide to the performer where he has to press down the strings in exact conformity with the established scale.

What we observe with different nations of the present day, respecting the diversity of musical scales, might evidently also have been observed in ancient time. The Greeks had several kinds of scales, the popularity of which changed at different periods. So also had our forefathers during the Middle Ages. There is no necessity to refer to the Tetrachord of the ancient Greeks and the Hexachord of Guido Aretinus for evidences of the mutability of taste in these matters, since it can be observed sufficiently by referring to the music of nations around us. However, the so-called Modes of our old ecclesiastical music require here, at any rate, a passing notice.

Some theorists maintain that our diatonic major scale is alone a true scale, and that any other regular succession of tones in which the two semitones of the diatonic scale occur upon other intervals than 3-4 and 7-8 is, properly speaking, a Mode. According to this doctrine, which was evidently suggested by the ecclesiastical Modes, our minor scale must be called a Mode, and the scales with steps exceeding a whole-tone, of which some examples will presently be given, are Imperfect Modes. It is unnecessary to refute such pedantic definitions; suffice it to remember that they exist.

Again, the diatonic major scale is regarded by many musicians as the natural order of intervals on which the compositions must be founded whenever the art of music has attained to a high degree of development, and which will therefore be universally adopted in the course of time. They form this opinion especially from the laws of Acoustics, since the intervals constituting the diatonic major scale are those which as harmonics stand in the most simple relation to the fundamental tone produced by a vibrating body. Here, however, it must be observed that the intervals of our diatonic scale are not all of them precisely the same as those harmonics, but are "tempered;" since, did we tune them pure, as nature gives them, we could not use our system of harmony as it has been developed by our classical composers.

Moreover, if the diatonic major scale is thus suggested by nature, the minor scale with its flat third must be more artificial, and less likely to be universally adopted. Howbeit, the minor scale is especially popular, not only with several uncivilized races, but also with several who have cultivated the art of music to a high degree. Some of our most eminent composers have written perhaps more beautiful music in minor than in major keys.

Besides, certain deviations from the diatonic major scale, which we meet with in the music of foreign nations, possess a particular charm, which we are sure to appreciate more and more as we gradually become familiar with them. This, for instance, is the case with the Superfluous Second introduced as an essential interval of the scale. Many of our musicians regard such intervals as whimsical deviations, which ought not to be liked because they do not well agree with the rules laid down in our treatises on the theory of music. To such learned Professors the scale of the Arabs, with its seventeen intervals in the compass of an octave, instead of twelve semitones, as in our own system, is of course a flagrant misconception—not to speak of the twenty-two demi-semitones of the Hindus, which ought to be twenty-four. Those nations have musical systems very different from ours, for which their order of intervals is well suited. Our rules of harmony and forms of composition are unknown to them; still, their popular legends and traditions clearly prove that they appreciate the beauty and power of music not less keenly than we do; and they demonstrate the superiority of their scales with the same confidence as any of our theorists are capable of displaying.

Could we trace our diatonic Major Scale in the songs of birds and in the euphonious cries of certain quadrupeds, we should have a more cogent reason for regarding it as the most natural scale than is afforded by a comparison of the vibrations required for the production of its several intervals. The songs of various birds have been written down in notation, from which it would appear that these feathered songsters possess an innate feeling for the diatonic major scale; but, unfortunately, unless the melodious phrases, or passages, thus noted down are distinguished by some remarkable rhythmical peculiarity, they are seldom easily recognizable when they are played on a musical instrument. There may be among the numerous birds a few which in their natural song, untaught and uninfluenced in any way by man, emit a small series of tones strictly diatonic; but no such musicians are to be found among our own birds, although we have in Europe the finest singing birds in existence. The nightingale, it is true, produces occasionally a succession of tones which nearly corresponds with the diatonic Major Scale in descending, and which might possibly be mistaken for it by a listener charmed by the exquisite purity and sweetness of the tones which he does not investigate with the ear of a pianoforte-tuner. Even the two melodious sounds of the cuckoo cannot be properly written down in notation; nor can they be rendered on the pianoforte, because they do not exactly constitute a Major Third, for which they are generally taken, and still less a Minor Third. A certain ape of the Gibbon family is said to produce exactly the chromatic scale through an entire octave in ascending and descending. Darwin, who in his work on 'The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals' (London, 1872; p. 87) mentions the astonishing musical skill of this ape, remarks that some quadrupeds of a much lower class than monkeys, namely Rodents, "are able to produce correct musical tones," and he refers the reader to an account of a "singing Hesperomys" [a mouse] by the Rev. S. Lockwood, in the 'American Naturalist,' Vol. V., December, 1871; p. 761. Notwithstanding the great authority of Darwin, the musical inquirer will probably desire to ascertain for himself whether the "correct musical tones" are exactly in conformity with our diatonic and chromatic intervals. However, even if this should be the case in a few instances, it can only be regarded as quite exceptional.

During the present century, our musical composers have so frequently employed in the diatonic major scale the Minor Sixth instead of the Major Sixth, that some theorists—among them Moritz Hauptmann—notice this order of intervals as a new and characteristic scale, and desire to have it as such generally acknowledged by musicians. A. Krauss, a teacher of music in Florence, has recently published a pamphlet, entitled 'Les Quatre Gammes diatoniques de la Tonalité moderne,' in which he designates this new scale with the name 'La Gamme semimajeur' (The Half-major Scale,) which is at any rate better than that suggested by Moritz Hauptmann, in his 'Die Natur der Harmonik and der Metrik,' which is 'Die Moll-Dur-Tonart' (the Minor-Major-Key, or scale).

We possess then, according to these theorists, now four diatonic scales, namely:—

1. THE MAJOR SCALE.

2. THE HALF-MAJOR SCALE.

Or also with minor seventh in descending:

3. THE MINOR SCALE

4. THE HALF-MINOR SCALE.

The Half-Minor Scale contains the Minor Third, while its other intervals are identical with those of the Major Scale. This is the case in descending, where the seventh and sixth are lowered, as well as in ascending.

Furthermore, we have the Chromatic Scale, a regular progression in semitones, which is much used by modern composers; and the Enharmonic Scale, which may be said to exist only in notation, since it is not executable on most of our musical instruments, but which is likely to become important in the music of a future period when our instruments have been brought to the degree of perfection which permits the most delicate modifications in pitch by the performer, and which is at present almost alone obtainable on instruments of the violin kind.

5. THE CHROMATIC SCALE.

6. THE ENHARMONIC SCALE.

Furthermore, we find at the present day the following scales in use among foreign nations:—

7. THE MINOR SCALE WITH TWO SUPERFLUOUS SECONDS.

If the lover of music is acquainted with the popular songs and dance-tunes of the Wallachians, or with the wild and plaintive airs played by the gipsy bands in Hungary, he need not be told that the Minor Scale with two Superfluous Seconds is capable of producing melodies extremely beautiful and impressive. Indeed, it would be impossible to point out more charming and stirring effects than those which characterise the music founded on this scale.

8. THE PENTATONIC SCALE.

The Pentatonic Scale was in ancient times apparently more universally in use than it is at present. It is still popular in China, in Malaysia, and in some other Eastern districts. Traces of it are found in the popular tunes of some European nations, especially in those of the Celtic races. Its charming effect is known to most of our musicians through some of the Scotch and Irish melodies. Also among the Javanese tunes, which have been brought to Europe by travellers, and which are generally strictly pentatonic, some specimens are very melodious and impressive.

9. THE DIATONIC SCALE WITH MINOR SEVENTH.

The Diatonic Scale with Minor Seventh is likewise an Eastern scale. Among European nations, the Servians especially have popular tunes which are founded on this scale. The Servian tunes frequently end with the interval of the Fifth instead of the First or the Octave. As the leading tone of our diatonic order of intervals—the Major Seventh—is wanting, our common cadence, or the usual harmonious treatment of the conclusion of a melody to which our ear has become so much accustomed that any other appears often unsatisfactory, cannot be applied to those tunes. Nevertheless, they will be found beautiful by inquirers who are able to dismiss prejudice and to enter into the spirit of the music. Although the scale with Minor Seventh bears a strong resemblance to one of our antiquated Church Modes, called Myxo-Lydian, it is in some respects of a very different stamp, since its characteristic features would become veiled if it were harmonised like that Church Mode.

In addition to the nine scales which have been enumerated, some others could be pointed out which are popular in European countries; but, as they resemble more or less those which have been given above, and as they may be regarded as modifications, it will suffice here to refer to them only briefly. There are, for instance, in the Irish tunes many of a pentatonic character in which one of the two semitones of the diatonic scale is extant, and the scale of which therefore consists of six intervals, either thus
Music [Listen], or thus Music [Listen].

We also meet with a pentatonic order of intervals in which the Third is flat like in our diatonic minor scale.

Again, some nations which have the diatonic order of intervals deviate slightly from it by habitually intoning some particular interval in a higher or lower pitch than it occurs in our tempered system. For instance, careful observers have noticed that the Swiss peasants in singing their popular airs are naturally inclined to intone the interval of the Fourth sharper than it sounds on the pianoforte. Thus, in C-major it is raised so as to give almost the impression of F sharp. This peculiarity is supposed to have arisen from the Alphorn, a favourite instrument of the Swiss, on which the interval of the Fourth, like on a trumpet, is higher than it is in our Diatonic Scale. No doubt many peculiarities of this kind are traceable to the construction of certain popular instruments. This is perhaps more frequently observable among uncivilized nations than with Europeans. Professor Lichtenstein, who, during his travels in South Africa, in the beginning of the present century, investigated the music of the Hottentots, asserts that these people sing the interval of the Third slightly lower than the Major Third, but not so low as the Minor Third; and the Fifth and Minor Seventh likewise lower than in our intonation. He found that the same deviations from our intervals exist on the Gorah, a favourite stringed instrument of the Hottentots.

Other peculiarities of the kind are more difficult to explain. In the Italian popular songs of the peasantry, for instance, we not unfrequently meet with the Minor Second, where to an ear accustomed to our Minor Scale it appears like a whimsical substitution for the Major Second. It occurs, however, only occasionally. When it is used, the scale is as follows; the Seventh being Major in ascending, and Minor in descending:—

In some instances such peculiarities have evidently been derived, as has already been stated, from the series of tones produced on a popular instrument. But there are many instances in which the tones yielded by the instrument have been purposely adopted in the construction of the instrument from the previously existing popular scale of the vocal music. Thus, it may possibly be that, as some inquirers maintain, the pentatonic character of certain Irish airs has its origin in the primitive scale of the ancient rural bagpipe of Celtic races, or, as others believe, in the simple construction of the ancient Irish harp;—on the other hand, the Chinese and Javanese, as we have seen, contrive in the construction of their instruments to obtain the pentatonic scale on which their vocal music is usually founded.

Those theorists who regard our diatonic major scale as the most perfect one, which ultimately must be universally accepted as the only true one, will probably not admit that under certain circumstances the sounding of one or other of its intervals a little "out of tune" may actually increase the beauty of a musical performance. Such is, however, unquestionably the case. To note a curious instance in proof of the correctness of this assertion as afforded by the clavichord, a contemporary of the harpsichord and predecessor of the pianoforte:—The strings of the clavichord are not sounded by being twanged with quills, as is the case in the harpsichord, but are vibrated by means of iron pins, called tangents, which press under the strings when the keys are struck. The pressure of the tangent lasts as long as the key to which the tangent is attached is held down. The deeper the performer presses the key down with his finger, the stronger is the pressure of the tangent against the string, and the more the string is raised by it. The raising of the string has the effect of slightly raising the pitch of its tone. The performer, therefore, has it in his power to modify in some degree the pitch of a tone, and by this means to distinguish any tone to which he desires to give emphasis, or to render prominent in expressing a melody, or in executing a passage with delicacy. The aptness of the clavichord for yielding to these deviations from the intonation of the intervals in which it is tuned, combined with its aptness for producing with great delicacy different degrees of loudness, constitute the principal charms of the instrument, and sufficiently account for the love which our old classical composers,—Handel, Bach, etc.,—bore for the clavichord.

A musical instrument containing all conceivable perfections for performance, we do not yet possess. Such an instrument would be required to yield not only Whole-Tones and Semitones, but likewise Demi-semitones, Semidemi-semitones,—in short, every modification of an interval which the performer desires. It must have the greatest compass obtainable in tones. All its tones must be of equal power, sonorousness and beauty. The sustaining, the increasing and decreasing in loudness, must be possible with each tone separately, at the option of the performer, even in harmonious combinations. Likewise the difference in manner of expression, such as legato, staccato, etc., must be thus obtainable. The greatest possible difference in the quality of sound (timbre) must be at the command of the performer for any tone which he wishes to be thus affected. The instrument must permit the simultaneous sounding of as many of its tones as the performer desires, whatever their distance from each other may be, and this must be achievable by him with about the same facility as he requires for the production of a single tone. The instrument must be playable by only one performer; it must not present any extraordinary difficulty to musicians to play it well; and it must permit being easily kept in tune. Perhaps the organ approaches the nearest to this perfection, but is still far from it. The violin and the violoncello are in some respects ahead of all—at any rate, as regards delicacy of expression.

But, fascinating though it may be to depict such a nearly perfect musical instrument of the Future, the real substitutes of our present contrivances, a century or two hence, will probably be very different from our ideal, especially if we found our speculation on the impression that our Tonal System is the only right one, and that our diatonic major scale will be as everlasting as a mathematical truth, or as the axiom that two and two are four.

Indeed, the mutability of the musical taste of man appears to be unlimited, and it is certainly possible that our children's children may find decidedly objectionable some rule of musical composition which is now thought highly satisfactory. Did not our ancestors at the time of Hucbald relish consecutive Fifths and Octaves as an harmonious accompaniment to a melody? A Chinese Mandarin, on hearing a French Jesuit, at Pekin, play on a clavecin some Suites de Pièces of a celebrated French composer, endeavoured to convince the performer that the Chinese music was the only true music "because," he said, "it appeals to the heart, while yours makes only noise." When Villoteau, during his residence in Egypt, investigated the Arabic music, his Arab music-master at Cairo endeavoured to convince him that the division of the Octave into seventeen intervals was more natural and tasteful than the European division into twelve chromatic intervals. A Nubian musician, on hearing Mr. Lane play the pianoforte, remarked: "Your instrument is very much out of tune, and jumps very much." He evidently missed the accustomed small intervals connecting the whole-tones in his own music. Livingstone, in his 'Missionary Travels in South Africa,' relates that on a certain occasion when an English missionary sang a hymn to an assembly of Bechuana Kafirs, "the effect on the risible faculties of the audience was such that the tears actually ran down their cheeks;" and the same may have happened to the missionary when he heard the Kafirs sing.

Many more examples from nations in different stages of civilization could be cited evidencing the remarkable variety and instability of musical taste. Much of our own music, which about a century ago was greatly admired, appears now unimpressive; and great masters who introduce important innovations are sure at first not to be understood by the majority of musical people.

Instead of regarding our Tonal System as exhibiting the highest degree of perfection attainable, and of repudiating musical conceptions which reveal another foundation, as our musicians are apt to do, it would be more wise in them to study the various systems on which the music of different nations is founded, to acquaint themselves especially with the characteristics of the various scales, and, by adopting them on proper occasions, to produce new effects more refreshing than the hackneyed phrases and modulations which usually pervade their works.

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